These Indians were now victimized by an entirely new phenomenon: organized gangs of white horse thieves, often dressed up as Indians, who preyed with impunity on the Comanche and Kiowa herds. They took the animals to Kansas and sold them. No one pursued them, no one prosecuted them.17 Cheating the Indians was always a good business. And while that was happening white whiskey peddlers moved freely inside the reservation, illegally selling diluted rotgut in exchange for buffalo robes. It amounted to robbery; the liquor cost little to make, while selling robes was virtually the only way many
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